Xanthus

Only just spotted this thread - been off the cut too long! I worked Tsarina & Tsarevna for a season when Steve Rees-Jones owned them. That would be, I think, 1978. My family had just set up a charter business on the Oxford, running Xanthus, but didn't have many bookings. I'd met Steve the previous year, when I was steering Goldcrest for English County Cruises, and out of the blue had a panic phone call from Steve to say his crew had jumped ship. They'd been moored up overnight on the Shroppie, not far from Hurleston, with a full complement of passengers. In the middle of the night, the "Captain" and his wife just left! Apparently, she'd found the towpath rough going in her high heels ... or something like that. Steve asked me to skipper the boat, and Neil Greenhalgh (whose parents had the shop at the top of Audlem locks) came along to help crew. What I thought would be a week or two ended up being the rest of a full season. The pair was bought a few years later by Andy and Chris Newman. It was Chris who took the photo on the postcard ... and I published it. CMC Graphics, is still going, but today we design books. They'd previously had a charter boat, based at Napton, called Vixen. By then they'd relocated to the Willow Wren yard in Rugby, at that time owned by Balliol Fowden. For their first season we managed all the T&T bookings for them, as they were still doing the steering and cooking themselves, while I focused on Xanthus. The following year they expanded the business and took on a full crew. So pleased to know that they're still going. I wonder what happened to Xanthus though ...

I have a vivid memory of crossing the Oxford summit, from Claydon to Napton, back in the winter of 1978/79, to make it to the Blue Lias for what was then a traditional New Year gathering. Typically about 20-30 boats would congregate there from all around the area, mostly full length or former working boats. Mine was the only boat moving through the ice that day, which was probably a little over an inch thick. It took me (if memory serves) about eight hours to complete the eleven miles, thanks mainly to the difficulty in taking the twists and turns around Wormleighton. When I eventually arrived at Marston Doles, the lock-keeper, Esme Dowling, had set the whole flight for me in readiness. He said he'd heard the sound of the ice cracking more than four hours previously. We repainted the hull every spring, and the ice certainly cleaned off all the crud.

If that was taken in the summer of 1978, then I was 'Captain' that year! At least the brass looks polished. By then the steam engine had been replaced by the Lister diesel that Alan mentions. Steve Rees Jones, who'd had the boats built/converted to create the pair, had recently bought the horse-drawn trip boat that used to run out of Norbury Junction, and hadn't the time to work the hotel pair himself. I was delighted to be offered the job, and enjoyed a very happy season with a great crew. Steve's still very active and I believe he's currently involved with another horse-drawn boat on the Montgomery. Steve sold Tsarina & Tsarevna to Chris & Andy Newman (formerly of Vixen), who ran them out of Rugby for many years. I'm very out of touch these days, so have no idea where they are now - boats or people.

Has anyone tried contacting Chris Barney? As far as I'm aware, he's still living in Birdingbury, near Rugby, where he works as a very accomplished carpenter, making bespoke hand-made furniture. I haven't seen him for a good ten years or so, but I'd have thought he'd be happy to share his recollections of building the Barney Boats back in the Seventies.

I was at Wrenbury on Sunday, and there must have been around a dozen Alvechurch boats moored there.

Nothing like dragging an old thread out of the bilges and giving it a good refresh ... especially as it's my first post here, so forgive the breach in etiquette. Intrigued to know if Kienik is still chasing info on these old and long-forgotten hire companies? I used to work for English County Cruises back in the seventies, and was skipper on Goldcrest, starting in the late spring of 1977. In the early days at ECC Goldcrest ran as a charter boat, with a permanent crew of one. For the first season (1976) Steve Wade, who effectively owned and ran ECC with his parents, skippered the boat, and I then took over. Prior to that I'd been a regular on hire boats (as a child, with a father who loved his boating, since about 1964!) but Goldcrest was my first professional steer. (I subsequently went on to do stints with several hotel boat companies before operating my own boat on the Oxford, name of Xanthus). At some stage, I think during the latter months of 1978, ECC gave up on chartering Goldcrest and started letting her out self-steer to “competent” hirers with previous experience. I suspect quite a few windows got broken! I can't recall exactly how many weeks she ran that first season with me, in 1977, but I do remember that almost every single booking took me up to Llangollen and back. A small handful asked for the Cheshire Ring, but I ended up knowing every shallow and shoal along the Llangollen like the back of my hand, especially on the final stretch up beyond Trevor. Thankfully Goldcrest needed little water, but in subsequent years, taking converted working boats up to Llangollen (plus butty) with nearly twice the draft, it paid to know where those tricky bits were. I certainly have some photos of ECC boats from that period, and probably even some original hire brochures, but forgive me if I admit I wouldn't know where to start looking!